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The Town That Lost its Cheese (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

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  Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Lauva and I'm Marina Sante. Spotlight uses
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  a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
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  matter where in the world they live. Cheddar. For many people, the
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  word is what they call all cheese products made from milk. For others,
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  cheddar describes a special kind of cheese. Often it is found in yellow blocks
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  at supermarkets, or it is sold as a product that has been cut into
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  pieces. These pieces are sold in plastic bags. In the English speaking world,
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  it is one of the most popular cheeses. But Cheddar is also a
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  town in southeast England. It is where Cheddar cheese was first made. The
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  town gave this cheese its name. But for a long time, people stopped
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  making Cheddar cheese in Cheddar. The place that had been famous for cheese was
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  now empty of cheese. How did this happen? Today's Spotlight is on this
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  question. It is about Cheddar. It is about the town that lost and
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  found its cheese. People have made cheese in Cheddar for a very long time.
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  The land around the town is good for raising cows, and the cliffs
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  around Cheddar are home to many caves. It is cool inside these caves all
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  year, so these are good for storing cheese. These are also great places
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  to age the cheese. In this process, cheesemakers keep cheese for a long
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  time before selling it. This gives the cheese a more complex taste. Aged
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  cheese is often more interesting than fresh cheese. In these early days, cheese
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  from Cheddar was not much different from other cheese. Cheesemakers would use a similar
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  process everywhere in the UK. They used milk from an animal. Then they
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  added a substance called rennet. Rennet separates milk into two parts. One part
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  is a solid called curds, another is a liquid called whey. Cheesemakers took
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  the curds and pressed them together. They left the way behind. After some
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  time, the curds would form a piece of cheese. This is one of
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  the basic ways of making cheese, but many cheeses made this way still have
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  a lot of whey in them. This makes the cheese softer, but more
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  whey means that cheese will go bad more quickly. In the fourteenth century,
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  cheesemakers in Cheddar found one way to solve this problem. They created a process
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  called scalding. When cheesemakers scald cheese. They heat the curds to a very
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  high temperature. This pushes extra liquid out of the curds. The result is
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  a harder cheese that will last much longer. They furthered this development with a
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  process called cheddaring. In cheddaring, cheesemaker's heap blocks of cheese on top of
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  each other. This forces even more way from the cheese. It also changes
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  the cheese's taste. Cheddaring makes the cheese taste sharper, and it makes aging
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  the cheese easier. These special processes made people take notes of cheese from Cheddar.
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  It tasted different from anything else made in the country. Paul Kinstett is
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  a teacher at the University of Vermont. He teaches about the history of cheese.
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  He spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation about Cheddar cheese's spread. The great
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  quality of the cheese caught the attention of wealthy Londoners. They visited the famous
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  caves of Cheddar Gorge and they ate local ches. During their visits, they
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  told others that cheese from Cheddar became famous from the fifteenth century on. Soon
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  Cheddar cheese became one of the most sought after cheeses in England, Cheddar became
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  the cheese of the upper class. King Charles the First was an English king.
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  He ruled the country from sixteen twenty five to sixteen forty nine. During
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  this time, there was a great demand for cheddar. People liked it so
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  much that the king decided only he and his court could order it. The
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  popularity of Cheddar cheese continues to last until this day. That the town that
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  gave the cheese its name did not benefit from this popularity for very long.
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  Cheddar is a small town, could not produce enough cheese for everyone, so
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  other towns began to make their own cheddar. People from England also moved to
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  other countries. They brought the secret of making Cheddar cheese with them. Places
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  in the United States like New York and Vermont became famous for their cheddar factories
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  appeared. These made Cheddar cheese too. Mass production meant that people could sell
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  Cheddar cheese all over the world. Cheesemakers in Cheddar could not compete. The
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  fame of its cheese grew the town did not. But it was not competition
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  that ended cheesemaking in Cheddar. Instead, it was a war During World War
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  II, Nazi Germany attacked the United Kingdom. The UK is an island.
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  It became difficult to get supplies from outside, so the food they had was
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  limited. During the war, the government created a rationing system. This meant
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  that everyone could only buy a small amount of food. The government also took
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  control over much of the food production. The government bought all milk on the
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  market and they made it into their own kind of cheese. Many people called
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  it government cheddar, but it did not taste much like cheese from Cheddar,
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  and it was not made in that town. Rationing helped people survive the war,
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  but it also destroyed small cheesemakers. Before World War One, there were
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  over thirty five hundred small cheese businessnesses in the UK. By the end of
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  World War II, there were fewer than one hundred. But cheesemaking traditions did
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  not die completely. In the nineteen nineties, small dairy farms began to make
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  cheese again. They returned to old methods. Many returned to the places where
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  people made cheese. Historically, the cheeses they make cost more than industrial cheeses,
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  but for many the price is worth it. Cheddar is one place that
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  saw a return of farmhouse cheese. John and Catherine Spencer are two English cheesemakers.
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  In two thousand and three they started the Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company. The
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  company tried to make Cheddar in the way it was made hundreds of years ago.
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  They used milk from local cows. They even aged it in the caves
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  of the Cheddar Gorge. Soon the Spencer's cheeses began winning awards. People began
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  traveling to the place from which the famous cheese style came. They began to
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  enjoy this new cheese that tasted so much like the original cheese. They found
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  it interesting to see how much the flavor had changed over hundreds of years.
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  The changes were great. Industrialization made Cheddar cheese almost unrecognizable. It made the
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  taste less complex, but without changing many may never have tasted Cheddar cheese without
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  traveling to places like America and Australia. It may never have found a great
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  name. Without its name, it may not have come back to Cheddar at
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  all. In twenty twenty one, Catherine Spencer spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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  Cheddar might have remained a small West Country product, but it might well
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  have disappeared, like many local cheeses have. Its shift to a major global
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  variety has created international recognition. With that comes a desire for our product.
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  It is closer to the original cheddar that would have been made here hundreds of
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  years ago, but our success mirrors the success of cheddar as a cheese in
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  all its forms. Have you ever eaten cheddar cheese? Are you willing to
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  pay more money for small batch products? Is there a type of food made
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  in your community which many people want to buy? We want to hear your
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  thoughts. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at radio
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  at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot
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  com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The
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  producer was Mitcheo Azeki. The voices you heard were from the United States and
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  the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
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  You can listen to this program again and read it on our website at
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  www dot Spotslight English dot com. This program is called The Town that Lost
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  Its Cheese. Hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye